Seven Days Battles

The Seven Days Battles were a series of seven battles fought over the course of seven days from 25 June to 1 July 1862 at the end of the Peninsula Campaign of the American Civil War.

Following the Battle of Seven Pines on 31 May-1 June 1862, Robert E. Lee assumed command of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia after its previous commander Joseph E. Johnston had been severely wounded. Lee was a much more aggressive general, and he swore to President Jefferson Davis that he would not let the Confederate capital of Richmond fall to the Union Army of the Potomac, whose general George B. McClellan cautiously refused to assault Richmond, despite coming within 9 miles of the city. Lee seized the initiative by sending his cavalry commander J.E.B. Stuart to reconnoiter McClellan's forces, leading 1,200 troops on a three-day, 150-mile ride around McClellan's army, burning their camps, cutting down telegraph poles, and capturing soldiers and supplies. As McClellan was finally preparing to lay siege to Richmond, Lee's army surprised McClellan at Beaver Dam Creek in Mechanicsville, dividing his small force and attacking the huge Union army. Lee lost 1,500 men in a failed assault, but he continued to attack the Union army for seven days, clashing at Oak Grove, Gaines' Mill, Garnett's and Golding's Farm, Savage's Station, Glendale, White Oak Swamp, and Malvern Hill. At Malvern Hill, federal gunners repelled repeated Confederate attacks up a long slope, inflicting heavy losses. McClellan's army remained safe along the James River, although it lost 16,000 men; the Confederates lost over 20,000 men. All but one of the battles were Union victories, but the cautious McClellan continued to back down until he withdrew to Harrison's Landing on the James River, where he was sheltered by federal gunboats. He refused to counterattack against Lee's army, and Lee was able to save Richmond and outgeneral McClellan in seven days of fighting. An exasperated President Abraham Lincoln sailed down to meet McClellan, who demanded 50,000 or 100,000 more men, but Lincoln told him that the reinforcements were not available, and that McClellan's men would be evacuated from the Peninsula if he did not feel confident of victory. Lee felt that McClellan would never attack Richmond, so he marched north towards Washington DC, forcing McClellan's army to withdraw to northern Virginia to support John Pope's army in the leadup to the Second Battle of Bull Run.